#waching spotless

[morgan-the-lonely-brick]

Victor in a tub, Victor in a tub, what crimes will he commit? (all of them)

[siriusleee]

adamantine chains | part 7 & 8

"Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus." "What does that mean?" "Love is rich with both honey and venom." "I suppose that is true." Or which in König finds you broken in the mountains. A (brief) retelling of Cupid and Psyche. König | Reader tags: pregnancy, unwanted/unplanned pregnancy, just vibing here a/n: have you ever written a story that has such an incredibly contrived plot because you didn't do enough planning at the beginning, but you can't stop until it's over. that's this story. but i'm just vibing with it. there are 2 more chapters (which i may post as one big one like i did this one). if you enjoy, subscribe to my ko-fi where i will be posting my writing updates, or donate to help me recuperate after buying so many damn school supplies. i also don't know how to do math, so my weeks are probably so off in this previous chapter | part one

For the first month König's gone, you throw yourself into helping Oma. The biting wind of winter threatens at the beginning of October, and everything needs to be cut back, dug up, covered in a thick canvas cloth to wait for next spring to reemerge. The dirt clings beneath your nails and at your knees - but it gives you something to do. 

Your camera sits on the bedside table in your room - you spend every night wrapped up in König's bed, breathing in the scent of him until it's nearly gone from the blankets. One day, folding laundry and putting it away you find his cologne tucked away in one of his drawers. You renew the house with the scent of him. 

Oma calls you the next day - the sound of the phone ringing wakes you from the nest of König's clothes you slept in. 

"Ja, Oma?"

"Bist du wach?"

"Ja, I awake. Are you alright?"

"Ich möchte, dass du vorbeikommst, wenn du Feierabend hast."

"Wie bitte? After work what do you need?"

On the other end of the line, Oma sighs - you know your slow grasp of the language frustrates her each day.

"After work, come over, please. I am cooking dinner."

"Ja, gnädige Frau. I will."

She doesn't say goodbye - a custom for her. You listen to the dial tone on the other end for a moment before letting the phone back down onto its hook. Your eyes are heavy and thick as you pad silently through the house, the cold floor making you shiver. Outside it's still dark - the sunrise only a hint on the horizon. 

Of course, Oma is awake. 

"It must be an old lady thing," you mutter to yourself, knowing that you'd never say it to her face. Your arms are covered in gooseflesh from the chill in the air - you rub yourself to try to keep warm. You're half in and half out of the hallway when you see why it's so cold - the front door is open and swaying in the early morning breeze.

"Fuck."

You slam the door shut and flick the lock but it sticks halfway in and out. It must not have latched completely last night and the wind blew it open - you think for a moment that you need to tell König to see if he can fix it. With a sigh, you shove the door harder. You'll have to fix it yourself. It takes a bit of strength, but you're able to get the lock into the right position - you won't be able to use it until it's fixed, but the backdoor will be fine. 

You think about going back to bed until it's time to wake up, but you know if you do, you'll just lay there for hours until it's time to get up. Instead you busy yourself cleaning, washing clothes that have piled up at the end of your bed, knowing that if König comes home and sees it, his nose will wrinkle - you've never met someone so obsessed with keeping their house spotless. 

 by the time you get ready for work, you're already worn out and tired, but you make sure to lock the backdoor behind you. 

***

"What is that smell?" You mutter to yourself, tying your apron around your waist. 

"Was?"

You look over at your co-worker, a sweet girl named Valentina, who smiles at you across the bar.

"You dont smell that?" You ask her; the air is filled with something that smells sickly sweet - reminiscent of rotting wood and dirt. Valentina shakes her head at you.

"It might be someone's," she mimes spraying herself, "Parfüm."

"Maybe."

It's your turn to do the cleaning - you do it without complaint, thankful of something to do, something to get you out of the house and away from the thought's of König and how upset he'd been at you about his mask. 

It's nearly noon and you're halfway through rubbing the chairs down with a disinfectant when Valentina calls you from the counter.

"Someone is asking about one of your photos."

A man with disheveled blonde hair stands at the counter, a print of yours in his hand. He looks not like he just rolled out of bed, but that he picked everything out to intentionally look like he just rolled out of bed. 

As you get closer you realize it's a print of König's shadow, rippling across a brick wall in the evening. The background is the town, lit up for night - nearly pastoral. 

"How much?" His accent is Western Europeanan, soft and lilting. 

"Oh -" You were expecting to have to try to figure out what to tell him in German, and his English catches you off guard. "Just however much you think it's worth. It's a pay what you think kind of thing."

You don't like the way he grins at you, sharp teeth almost predatory, but when he pushes a bill into your hands you take it from him. His hand lingers in yours, almost to warm before he pulls away.

"Thank you."

You watch the door swing shut behind him before looking down at the bill in your hands. A hundred euros. 

You raise it up at Valentina, who's eyebrows shoot up.

"Why would he give me this?"

"Maybe he thought you were cute."

"Gusch Valentina."

At the end of your shift you wave goodbye at Valentina. You're exhausted, much more than you usually are, and there's a dull ache at the bottom of your right foot; you want to call Oma and ask if you can reschedule, but you know she's got dinner waiting on you and you can't disappoint. 

On the ride it starts to sprinkle, and by the time you make it to her house, it's pouring outside, hard enough that you can barely see the road infront of you, but you make it, albeit slowly. You try to cover your head with your jacket as you run inside, rainwater filling your shoes.

"Oma; I'm here!"

The sound of silence and rain on the roof greets you. 

"Oma!"

"Komm mal her!"

You follow her voice to the kitchen, where there's already something boiling on the stove. Oma kisses you on each cheek, barking at you to sit down.

"Oma wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?"

"I do not need your help - just sit, you have been working all day."

You feel useless as she putters around, stirring whatever smells amazing on the stove, pulling bread out of the oven, filling a pitcher with water. 

She slides your plate across the table at you before taking a seat across from you. 

"Have you heard from König?"

You shake your head at her, ripping a piece of bread off.

"Nein. Not since he left."

"How long has it been?"

"Eight weeks, nine weeks. Something like that."

The two of you finish eating in silence - you're busy washing the dishes up for Oma when she speaks again.

"I have some friends who need help around their house. Old ladies who can't get things done like they used to. I told them about you - that you might want to earn some extra money and be out of the house while König is gone. It is not good for you to be alone all the time."

You dry the tines of the forks, your eyes trained on the rain falling roughly outside. 

"That would be nice, Oma. Thank you."

"Ja. I will let them know when you can."

"Danke, Oma."

You kiss her on the cheek good-bye and dash to the car, getting soaked for the second time that evening. 

Her figure, waving good-bye at you in the headlights, makes you want to run inside, ask her if you can stay the night. But you turn the key over in the ignition and drive home.

***

Oma's friends work you like a dog on your days off, barking at you in gentle German, pressing food into your hands whenever you leave. You have to start giving some of it to Valentina whenever you can, your work shirts getting a little tighter than you usually like. 

One of the women has you sorting seed packets when your cell rings; you hope for a second that it's König, calling to tell you he's home, but it's Oma. 

"You need to come to my house. Tonight. As soon as you can."

"Are you alright Oma?"

Her tone worries you - frantic and worried.

"Ja. You need to come. Do not forget."

She hangs up on you, leaving you staring at the screen. God, you wished König would come home, or even have given you an address to write him at - something. But he didn't; it worries you at night his silence, the fact that he's been gone longer than he had before and you've heard nothing. You reason with yourself that if something bad had happened someone would have called you.

Oma waits for you at the dinner table - the stove is empty and her expression is grim. Fear grips you for a moment: something has happened, and Oma was the one contacted. His body was dumped somewhere - this is happening to you again - this-

"You are pregnant."

Her words hit you viscerally, pulling you out of the dark the thoughts that whirled around you.

"Oma what the fuck!"

"Pass auf, was du sagst! Frau Müller said you threw up when she was cooking fish."

"It smelt horrific Oma, I'm not."

"You are going to argue with me? You have had no kids and I have had many."

You want to roll your eyes at her, but you fear her aim with a wooden spoon.

"Oma I think I would know."

"You would not because you have been to worried about König you haven't payed attention to anything. But I have - I know."

A new sort of panic sets in, a worry that she's right. 

"I will take you to the doctor tomorrow early. Do not go to work. Say you are sick."

"Oma you don't drive-"

"I know that - you will drive me."

You don't see a way out of this argument, out of this predicament. So you agree and walk out of the house in a daze. Halfway home, you have to pull of to throw up from worry.

***

You're frozen in the cold doctor's seat as he pulls the blood from the crook in your arm. You half catch the words that tumble between him and Oma; nod along at his clipped English, but you don't really pay any attention to him. 

His fingers are warm when he touches your shoulder, pulling you from the state you'd lost yourself in. 

"Three days."

Three days.

It had been nearly three months since König had left, and all you wished as you drove Oma back home was that you had a number to call him, some way to beg him to come home and take care of you. 

You don't even really know him.

The thought had bounced around your head since the night before, chasing away whatever sleep you'd been able to grasp. König's smell had already been washed away from the bedsheets, and it had just felt lonely in a way you hadn't felt in months. 

The entire thing was eating at you - you'd let a strange man sweep you into a fantasy and now there was a chance that he had you trapped with no alternative. Despite how good König had treated you, you still felt stupid for the entire thing.

But that didn't stop the elation you felt when you spotted the white envelope tucked into the doorjamb. Shuffling your purse and keys, you yank the folded up sheet of paper from the inside out. Smoothing it out as you step into the house, you slam the door shut with your foot and let your purse fall heavily to the floor.

König's heavy scrawl - like he's putting his entire weight behind the pen - covers the paper in chicken scratch.

I miss you. I will be home soon. Be good Taube.

Soon?

You can feel the panic rising inside of you; you'll have to tell him when he gets home. What if he's angry? Panic starts to constrict in your chest; you crumple König's letter up and shove it in your pocket. 

You can't think of this right now - the worry between wondering when König will come home and what the doctor might say is too much for you to handle right now.

You do your best not to think as you haul dusty cleaning supplies out from underneath the kitchen sink. The house had never been dirty; König was abnormally clean for a man his age and size. But there was nothing else to do - you had called off work for the doctor's appointment and you weren't sure if you could handle walking the shops.

So you immerse yourself in the process of cleaning. Beneath your fingers, a shine develops across the house that you hadn't seen before. Your back is cramping as you scrub the bathtub with a bristle brush; sweat pools in the small of your back. 

You even scrub the floor on your hands and knees, washing away the dirt that accumulated between the cracks in the tile. 

You throw yourself into cleaning until you fall into bed exhausted and for the first night in weeks you aren't plagued with dreams of your grandfather or König. But the restless panic starts again the moment you wake up, and you arrive at work three hours early.

Valentina looks at you with confusion across her face, but she doesn't say anything as you shake your head at her. Throwing your apron over your head, you speak without looking at her. 

"I'm going to organize the stockroom - I'll be out in a few hours."

It's different here - in the hot stock room with boxes stacked two deep and multiple highs. The panic is worse here, where the familiarity of the house isn't an innate comfort. But it's enough to keep you from checking your phone every five minutes to see if the doctor had called. 

You're not sure how long you're there before Valentina is calling your name.

"Are you going to keep working back there or are you going to come work the front with me?"

You trace your fingers across the sticker of an imported bag of coffee beans; you want to stay back here and hide away. You're worried that anyone will see it written across your face - the same way that Oma did. But you can't leave Valentina at the front alone for the rest of the shift.

"I'm coming!"

Wiping the sweat from your forehead, you duck out of the store room. It's cold up front - the air that had started to chill outside creeping in every time someone walked in. It's packed up front; you take over the line still not comfortable enough with your German to try to work the register. 

When the line starts to lull, you can see Valentina peering at you from the corner of her eye. You can see it bursting inside of her: the urge to ask you what's wrong. She's never been the type of person to keep herself from prying, but this time she manages to keep it to herself.

"I'm having a party this weekend if you want to come," she finally says, wiping the register down during a slow moment. "There won't be a lot of people there."

You force yourself to smile over at her, fingers paused in the act of scratching dried milk off of the counter. 

"That sounds fun."

"Would your - would König be coming?"

You keep your eyes trained on the dried milk, not looking over at her prying eyes. 

"I'm not sure. He should be home soon."

"How soon is soon?"

"Not sure."

After the two women who'd been in here bad mouthing König, you'd never bothered to ask him if anyone else in town knew what he did for a living - if anyone knew about his work in the military. He wouldn't have answered the question; but you could tell from how everyone said his name, how everyone looked at him when the two of you walked alongside each other, that they knew he did something they didn't want to know about.

You can hear it in the way Valentina speaks his name. She's being polite because she likes you, but she doesn't want König to show up.

You close the shop for the night, an hour after waving good-bye to Valentina as she disappeared around the corner. It's eerily silent as you count the change down, readying the drawer for the openers. You try to drag the last tasks as long as possible: sweeping behind the counter, putting new bags in the trash cans, but you can only drag it out for so long.

Your brain spirals again on the prospect of being pregnant - of having to explain to König what had happened. You try to script out the conversation in your head; a thousand different scenarios occupy your thoughts as you drive home. Each one ends in König storming out of the house, of you being forced to be alone.

You don't move for a moment as you park the car, the lights illuminating the glass in the window. You're halfway out the door, when a twitch at the window catches your attention- behind the curtain you can just make out the outline of someone waiting there. Your heart leaps, for just a moment you expect König to come bounding out the door.

But when the shadow moves towards the front door the overwhelming feeling that something is wrong washes over you. It's too small - too short to be your König. One foot is still poised in the car as you freeze. You scan the grass, looking for any sign that the giant truck that usually drops König off had cut through the grass earlier, but it's still pristine in the darkness. 

And König would have met you at work; he never let you drive at night when he was home. He'd never not come to meet you the moment he was home. 

The door cracks open - you don't know if it's a trick of your imagination or if whoever is in there is really coming out. In a blind panic you throw yourself back in the car, finger fumbling for the key to try to turn it on. Without looking back up at the door - scared of who you might see, you keep your eye focused on the steering wheel as the car comes to life beneath you and you slam the car into a turn.

As you straighten the wheel, you glance in the rearview mirror - a shadowed figure, just illuminated by your tail lights, peers at you from behind the front door.

[lucifersagents]

So I started to rewatch star Trek enterprise and I remembered this one fic idea that I had asince I wached the Episode vox sola whicj if I remember correctly was when that episode first aired in my country. So you can do this either with trip or archer (damn was scott bacula young back then). So in that episode both trip and archer got taken by that alien and I was wondering if you could do a story where the reader saves her love interest but gets taken instead and angst and fluff at the end?

I had to remind myself what that was lmao. I remember that episode now that I know which one that is. THAT EPISODE HAD ME IN TEARS. If I did this with Trip, you KNOW I’m not gonna end it in tears. So I’m just gonna go ahead and use Trip lmao

I have this vendetta against sad endings. I think because of this terribly sad ending that I saw in a movie back in college. I also just like happy endings. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I believe is the movie. I had to watch it for film and I cried so hard.